I certainly support 579's call for more attention to the trades.

I am also very supportive of Antiseptic's remarks in his first post about the inadequacies of aggregating data, how misleading aggregate data can be. This is glaringly obvious in the case of Aboriginal statistics, which lump urban and remote data and thereby obfuscate every issue and bury every major crisis in a meaningless soup of numbers.

To get back to Antiseptic's note about female participation at university: in 2010, Indigenous women made up 1.77 % of all domestic women commencements (3,324 out of about 185,000). Indigenous women make up about 2.3 % of all Australian women, so their university participation rate is close to 80 % of Australian women's, which is already pretty high compared to other countries.

In fact, Indigenous women's university commencement rate is probably higher than that of women in most European countries.

The first decent numbers of Indigenous graduates did not ocur until the eighties: there were probably still fewer than a thousand in 1985. But by the end of this year, that total has risen to around 28,000, two-thirds women. So about one in every seven Indigenous women is a university graduate - one in every five or so in the cities. So in barely thirty years, Indigenous women have lifted their proportion of graduates from barely half a per cent to better than 20 %.

Meanwhile, out in the remote settlements, four out of five children finish school unable to read and write, and clueless when it comes to maths and money.

Something's working - but not where the policy focusses.

Joe

Antiseptic is worried that universities will soon only contain women, if the current trends continue.
All the boys will just have to try a little harder to secure their places at Uni then won't they...

Don't worry Lexi, Antiseptic has spat the dummy and pulled in his caustic tongue several times before, but he always comes back.

All we have to do is start a thread on the virtues of women, or on domestic violence, and he won't be able to help himself
: )

Dear Suse,

I know what it's like to be really upset over
something someone's said to me on this forum.
In retrospect I've realised that I sometimes
misunderstood and taken things personally
when that wasn't what was really intended. Words
are funny things and can be mis-interpreted and
humour is often difficult to communicate.
Anyway, I feel sorry for anyone who feels they're
not being listened to correctly (been there).
But, it's his choice what he does now. I just
didn't want him to feel that we were deliberately
out to offend him. We weren't. Anyway, Thanks for
caring.

i wish we could evolve the titles
when the subject matter changes

anyhow as the toopic now sems to be iss-y fits and packing ya bongo's when you dont like the way the songline is unwinding

oh heck i know nuthin of music
nor song lines
arnt educated neitha

so thats it
back up my bongo
and simply drift away
[hey its dec 4 just like i promised

but heck i also cant run away
so will post my OPINION..another day

Well that is your decision Anti.

You obviously don't read my posts enough if you think my goals are 50/50 for every arena in life including for women. Just not possible or realistic. Note that most men don't give a toss if women are under-represented in any field. Personally I don't give a toss as long as there is equitable access. There is no need to hand hold anyone to a particular POV or role, it is up to individuals, no level of government interference can change personal decisions. Governments can only ensure that access is not blinded by gender, race or other factors.

You need to ask why more men are not choosing to attend uni. That is a question you are not considering. Personally I think there is too much emphasis on tertiary education and it has become so commercialised as to be almost meaningless in terms of 'standards'.

Much rather there be a strata of different educational opportunities to suit the needs of various professions, skills and jobs. Not everthing can and should be done at university level.

Pelican,

Please be careful how you phrase propositions: "Much rather there be a strata of different educational opportunities to suit the needs of various professions, skills and jobs. Not everthing can and should be done at university level."

Back in the early nineties, when I was involved in Aboriginal career workshops, whenever I heard about somebody commenting that " ... not all Aboriginal kids can go [or will go] to university....", I knew in my bones that that person meant: "I don't think many [or any] Aboriginal kids will [or should] go to university at all."

And that they would be getting on the blower to somebody saying, "Stop this bloody program at once." Which more or less happened. It was particularly disappointing to hear it (albeit second-hand) from people in Aboriginal education, but there you go.

Yes, perhaps there are people of gold, people of iron and people of clay, Pelican, as that old fascist Plato wrote. But let's try to support the rights of every child, while they are still 'people of potentially anything' to give whatever they like a try - let's not pre-empt or pre-select who gets the first prize, and in this way, merely reinforce the status quo.

Cheers,

Joe